LING 2100 Exam 2 Study Guide Chapter 3 Phonology Phonology The study of the distribution of sounds in a language and the interactions between those different sounds Phonotactic Constraints o Restrictions on possible combinations of sounds Sound Substitution o Sounds that exist in a language a speaker knows are used to replace sounds that do not exist in that language when pronouncing the words of a foreign language Allophones and Phonemes o Phoneme A class of speech sounds that seem to be variants of the same sound o Allophone Each member of a particular phoneme class Correspond to an actual phonetic segment produced by a speaker Various ways that a phoneme is pronounced o Nonconstrastive Interchanging two words with different sounds does not change the meaning Ex different pronunciations of the same word o Contrastive Replacing one sound with the other in a word can change the word s meaning Distribution o The set of phonetic environments in which the phoneme occurs o Contrastive Distribution Two sounds occur in the same phonetic environment and using one rather than the other changes the meaning of the word o Minimal Pair A pair of words whose pronunciations differ by exactly one sound and that have different meanings When you have a minimal pair you know that the two sounds that differ are contrastive Ex pen vs pan o Complementary Distribution Sounds are considered to be allophones of the same phoneme Sounds appear in different sets of environments If two sounds are in complementary distribution in a language there will never be a minimal pair that uses them to distinguish words that is they are not contrastive You can always predict one of the allophones but not the other Ex s occurs after voiceless consonants prediction z occurs elsewhere not predictable o Contrastive Relation to phonemes Allophones of separate phonemes Predictability of distribution Unpredictably distributed How you can tell Contrastive distribution minimal pairs o Allophonic Relation to phonemes Allophones of the same phoneme Predictability of distribution Predictably distributed How you can tell Complementary distribution o Free Variation Relation to phonemes Allophones of the same phoneme Predictability of distribution Unpredictable How you can tell Overlapping distribution with no difference in meaning Free Variation o More than one pronunciation of a given sound may be possible without changing the meaning of the word o You may not be able to predict exactly which sound will occur o Overlapping Distribution Because these sounds can occur in the same environment they are in what is called overlapping distribution they can occur in same environment Sounds that are in contrastive distribution and sounds that are in free variation are therefore both considered to have overlapping distribution only sounds that are in complementary distribution do not overlap Ex in English both t and d are overlapping because they occur in the same phonetic environment with lit and lid Phonological Rules o A speaker s knowledge of phonological rules allows him to translate phonemes into actual speech sounds Natural Classes o A group of sounds in a language that share one or more articulatory or auditory property to the exclusion of all other sounds in that language o In order for a group to be a natural class it must include all of the sounds that share a particular property or set of properties and not include any sounds that don t o Sibilant Segments that have a high pitched hissing sound quality s S tS z 3 d3 o Labial f v p b m w w with the small circle o Obstruent Produced with an obstruction of the airflow Stops fricatives and affricates o Sonorant Segments produced with a relatively open passage for the airflow Nasals liquids glides and vowels Types of Phonological Rules o Assimilation Cause a sound to become more like a neighboring sound with respect to some phonetic property The segment affected by the rule of assimilates or takes on a property from a nearby segment Nasal Place Assimilation An alveolar nasal assimilates to the place of articulation of a following consonant Palatalization A consonant becomes like a neighboring palatal Ex when you say Did you quickly it sounds more like dId3u taking on the j sound Vowel Harmony Typically causes all the vowels in a word to harmonize or agree in some property such as roundness or backness Ex In Finnish a back vowel becomes front when preceded by a front vowel in the same word o Dissimilation Cause two close sounds to become less similar with respect to some property by means of a change in one or both sounds Manner Dissimilation In Greek a stop becomes a fricative when followed by another stop o Insertion Cause a segment not present at the phonemic level to be added to the phonetic form of a word Voiceless stop insertion In English between a nasal consonant and a voiceless fricative a voiceless stop with the same place of articulation as the nasal is inserted Ex Hamster when we say it we add a p in the middle of the word o Deletion Eliminate a sound that was present at the phonemic level h Deletion Common in fast speech because it saves time and articulatory effort Apply to a sentence like He handed her his hat losing the h in her and his o Metathesis Change the order of sounds Usually makes words easier to pronounce or easier to understand o Strengthening AKA Fortition Makes sounds stronger Aspiration Voiceless stops become aspirated when they occur at the beginning of a stressed syllable Ex the pronunciation of the p in pat is aspirated o Weakening AKA lenition Cause sounds to become weaker Flapping An alveolar stop us realized as a flap when it occurs after a stressed vowel and before an unstressed vowel Multiple Rule Application o Schwa Insertion Insert a schwa between two sibilants o Voicing Assimilation Ex z s Takes on the voicing specifications of the preceding sound Chapter 4 Morphology Morphology o The component of mental grammar that deals with types of words and how words are formed out of smaller meaningful pieces and other words o Lexicon Mental dictionary o Lexical Categories AKA parts of speech Classes of words that differ in how other words can be constructed out of them Classified as noun adjective verb etc Open Lexical Categories Nouns verbs adverbs and adjectives Open because new words can be added to the language Closed Lexical Categories Pronouns we she they Prepositions on of under about and conjunctions and or but o Derivation Creating new words